Whip un­der mi­cro­scope

WHIP of­fences are set to come un­der the mi­cro­scope in 2019, with the Bri­tish Horserac­ing Au­thor­ity plan­ning to start a re­view process in Jan­uary.

The rul­ing body is­sued its safety eval­u­a­tion of this year’s Chel­tenham Fes­ti­val on Wed­nes­day and af­ter out­lin­ing 17 rec­om­men­da­tions as part of that re­port, the BHA is now ready to ex­am­ine the is­sue of penal­ties for mis­us­ing the whip.

A state­ment read: “The BHA stated in March that we would be look­ing at penal­ties for whip of­fences to en­sure they present a suf­fi­cient de­ter­rent, es­pe­cially in higher pro­file races.

“We have been con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor data in 2018, and now that the Chel­tenham re­view has been pub­lished, we are in a po­si­tion to con­sider how to progress this is­sue.

“This process will start in Jan­uary, when we will be­gin putting time­lines in place.”